Familiness Concept Paper
“Familiness” is a term that has been used to encompass why, when, and how the family form of
business organization succeeds or fails (Chrisman, Chua, & Steier, 2005; Habbershon, Williams,
and MacMillan, 2003). It characterizes those interactions between individual family members,
the family unit, and the business that lead to systemic synergies.
Paragraphs from JBR paper indicating the subsample of “family businesses” using the oft used
criteria rather than a continuous measurement of “familiness. Citation for the article is:
Danes, S.M., Stafford, K., & Loy, J. T. (2007). Family business performance: The effects of
gender and management. Journal of Business Research, 60 (10), 1058-1069.
The 2000 sample size was 553, more than 75% of the 1997 sample (Winter et al., 2004).
For each wave, financial data were reported for the previous year. Several additional criteria
were applied to this study sub-sample: a) the business had to be operating in 2000, b) the
business had the same owner in 2000 and 1997, and c) the survey was complete. After
examining the characteristics of the 2000 sample, Winter et al. (2004) concluded that by
including business stability measures such as business age, number of employees, and gross
revenue analyses of panel data could maintain sample representativeness
This study also applied at least one of these criteria (Heck and Trent, 1999): owner
perceived their business to be a family business, at least one other family member was a major
business decision maker, at least one other family member was an owner, at least one other family
member worked in the business, and future family ownership was considered likely. Seventeen
percent of owners met one of these definition criteria, 28% met two, 37% met three, 15% met
four, and 3% met all five criteria. After this screening, the sample included 301 family businesses.
Syntax used to obtain the 301 “family firms” with the criteria used above is:
*filter to get n of 553 and other vars to get n of 301 business managers of family businesses.
USE ALL.
COMPUTE filter_$=(compst97 >= 1 & compst97 <= 4 & openbus = 1 & managebs = 1 & finalsta=1).
VARIABLE LABEL filter_$ 'compst97 >= 1 & compst97 <= 4 (FILTER)'.
VALUE LABELS filter_$ 0 'Not Selected' 1 'Selected'.
FORMAT filter_$ (f1.0).
FILTER BY filter_$.
EXECUTE .
*Group variable identifies the 24 id#s of businesses not meeting any of the five family business criteria.
Compute group=1.
if any
(id1,526,653,1651,3261,4308,4370,4882,5329,5371,6726,6766,7395,8724,8918,9058,9247,9924,11096,
11114,11523,11524,11884,12010,13237) group=0.
select if (group eq 1).
References
Aldrich, H.E., & Cliff, J.E. (2003). The pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: Toward a
family embeddedness perspective. Journal of Business Venturing, 18, 573-596.
Astrachan, J.H. (2003). Commentary on the special issue: The emergence of a field. Journal of
Business Venturing, 18, 567-572.
Astrachan, Joseph H., Sabine B. Klein, and Kosmas X. Smyrnios (2002). “The F-PEC Scale of
Family Influence: A Proposal for Solving the Family Business Definition Problem,”
Family Business Review, 15 (1), 45-58.
Chrisman, James J., Jess H. Chua, and Lloyd Steier (2005). “Sources and Consequences of
Distinctive Familiness: An Introduction,” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29 (3),
237-247.
Chrisman, James J., Jess H. Chua, and Lloyd Steier (2003). An introduction to theories of family
business. Journal of Business Venturing, 18, 441-448.
Cramton, C.D. (1993). Is rugged individualism the whole story? Public and private accounts of a
firm’s founding. Family Business Review, 6(3), 233-261.
Dyer, W.G. (2006). Examining the “family effect” on firm performance. Family Business Review,
19, 253-273.
Ensley, Michael D. and Allison W. Pearson (2005). “An Exploratory Comparison of the
Behavioral Dynamics of Top Management Teams in Family and Nonfamily New
Ventures: Cohesion, Conflict, Potency and Consensus,” Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, 29 (3), 267-284.
Ensley, M. D., Pearson, A.W., & Amason, A.C. (200w). Understanding the dynamics of new
venture top management teams: Cohesion, conflict, and new venture performance.
Journal of Business Venturing, 17, 365-386..
Habbershon, Timothy G. (2006). Commentary: A framework for managing the familiness and
agency advantages in family firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 30 (6), 879886.
Habbershon Timothy G., Williams Mary, MacMillan Ian C. A unified systems perspective of
family firm performance. J Bus Ven 2003;18(4):451-465.
Heck, R.K.Z. & Rogoff, E. (2003). Evolving research in entrepreneurship and family business:
Recognizing family as the oxygen that feeds the fire of entrepreneurship. Journal of
Business Venturing, 18, 559-566.
Heck, Ramona K. Z., Trent Elizabeth. The prevalence of family business from a household
sample. Fam Bus Rev;12; 209-224.
Nordqvist, M. (2005). Familiness in top management Teams: Commentary on Ensley and
Pearson’s “An exploratory Comparison of the behavioral dynamics of top management
teams in family and nonfamily new ventures: Cohesion, conflict, potency, and consensus.
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, May, 285-291..
Sirmon, D.G., & Hitt, M.A. (2003). Managing resources: Linking unique resources, management,
and wealth creation in family firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Summer, 339358.